The International Journal for Philosophy of Religion published an article recently: Does moral anti-theodicy beg the question?
In this article, Gabriel Echazú identifies some important points and potential confusions in the debate about moral anti-theodicy. And since I am the source of some of these confusions, I thought I’d better reply. So I sent Gabriel an email.
But since we’re not the only ones talking about this, I thought I’d better make the content of the email more widely available: so it’s posted below, with Gabriel’s permission. I’ve edited it only to add links.
Hi Gabriel (if I may),
I hope you don’t mind me contacting you out of the blue like this, but I happened to stumble on your recent publication: ‘Does moral anti-theodicy beg the question?’
As I was reading it, I felt like there were a few implicit questions that I might be in a position to answer, so I felt like I ought to try.
I just wanted to say that it’s a good article and that I agree with everything that you say, and whilst I can’t track the routes that led me to every phrase, I expect an equivocation has crept in and that the equivocation is the product of talking to different people and to different purposes. And that equivocation has led to confusion.
I think there are two equivocations that you identify: one is ‘key premise’ and another is ‘anti-theodicy’. People are clearly using these terms in different ways. And we get a compound effect in the phrase ‘the key premise of anti-theodicy’! Which ‘key premise’? Which ‘anti-theodicy’?!
‘Therefore, I believe that Betenson could be wrong when he states that “the anti-theodical premise asserts that there are some evils that cannot be justified. As such, the key premise of anti-theodicy assumes that the conclusion of theodicy is false” (Betenson, 2016: 60).’
Gabriel Echazú, ‘Does moral anti-theodicy beg the question?‘
You’re right, I could be wrong. And I definitely am wrong if I match up the wrong ‘key premise’ with the wrong ‘anti-theodicy’. It depends how you structure the argument, I think, and to what purpose.
e.g., my purpose in responding to Snellman in the way that I did would’ve been along the lines of showing that it doesn’t matter whether or not I beg the question. For that purpose, I’ll accept whatever he says, for the sake of argument. In fact, in that article, you’ll see me push further than the original accusation, setting up examples that are more obvious cases of question-begging (arguing with flat Earthers, e.g.) in an attempt to make a point: in some cases we are right to reject an argument on the basis of its conclusion.
Snellman might be right about me, because I do ‘presuppose’ that there are horrendous evils that can’t be justified, because of my peculiar ideas about moral necessity. I ‘presuppose’ that moral limit (and that there are moral limits) in the same way that I ‘presuppose’ the laws of arithmetic when I say that 1+1=2, or that I ‘presuppose’ I have feet when I get up out of my chair. And it would be odd to describe these as inferences or ‘conclusions of arguments’, or even intermediate conclusions, not least because any such arguments would almost certainly be circular: that 1+1=2 both follows from and in part determines the laws of arithmetic. But obviously this comes from a particular Wittgensteinian set of ideas and it isn’t to say that all ‘anti-theodicists’ think the same.
All the same, for me the ‘key premise’ of moral anti-theodicy is precisely that: there are unconscionable or unjustifiable evils. I call it the morally impossible.
Not that we know there are, empirically, in fact, instances of these things, but rather that we recognise it when we see it, that the concept of moral necessity is meaningful (not nonsense) and forms a constitutive part of our moral understanding (hinges around which our moral reasoning swings, etc.), and given that it is a moral necessity it’s not something that we can choose to set aside: e.g., that Jimmy Savile’s child abuse is unconscionable, unjustifiable, morally impossible, a violation of moral necessity, etc., and cannot be paid off or made good, both follows from and in part determines my moral understanding. If you ask me to change that judgement, you ask me to throw out my moral judgement entirely; just as asking me to doubt whether 1+1=2 would ask me to abandon my understanding of the laws of arithmetic. (I probably show what I mean better here: Moral Modalities and the Limits of Moral Thinking)
But if the question is ‘where did I get that understanding of the “key premise” of anti-theodicy: Surin or Simpson?’, then the answer is ‘neither’ because it’s from ‘me’. I appreciate it might be (and probably is) idiosyncratic. So when I say ‘key premise’ of anti-theodicy, I really mean key premise for me.
I do think that is the key premise that’s doing the heavy lifting in all morally-motivated anti-theodicy, however. All of them appeal to a notion of the unjustifiable, unconscionable, morally impossible, etc., in some form. But that’s only one interpretation (mine). No doubt others disagree (I’d be surprised if they didn’t), and so whenever anyone else uses the term ‘key premise of anti-theodicy’, probably an equivocation will start to creep in. We probably mean different things.
There’s also an equivocation in ‘anti-theodicy’, because surely there are forms of moral anti-theodicy that are critiques and there are forms of moral anti-theodicy that are meta-critiques: call anti-theodicy 1 the first order critique within the debate and anti-theodicy 2 the second order meta-critique of the debate.
I’d forgotten, but I’ve just noticed I mentioned this in a way in the Snellman piece:
‘If moral anti-theodicy manages to show that attempts to find sufficient reasons for evil (theodicy) are immoral, then I think its work is done. Moral anti-theodicy can go further and take the form of a metacritique of the philosophy of religion, but it does not need to. It can have humbler aims and simply be a response to theodicy. In doing this, I think it remains a legitimate response, and as such not going any further is not so great a failing. Moral anti-theodicy is anti-theodicy, after all, not anti-theodicism, or anti-theism, and certainly not anti-“philosophy-of-religion-as-we-know-it”-ism.’
In Defence of Moralising Anti-Theodicy: A Reply to Snellman
Again, I’d be surprised if others didn’t disagree. But given that distinction, I suppose my view is 1 initially, which leads to 2. Surin is 2, always, from which 1 follows? Trakakis is 2, but clearly would agree with 1 too I think. Phillips is 1 and 2. Gleeson is 1 and 2. Etc. You can see bits of both in most, most of the time, but not all the time in the resulting discussion because people are focusing on particular things. So it makes sense that there’d be some crossover and confusion.
You’re right to point it out. Thank you!
Does Snellman ask for/insist on 2? It seems that way. Because moral anti-theodicy does not ‘dismantle the speculative metaphysics’ of theodicism (clearly a ‘2’ level issue). Does this account for our disagreement? If you ask me a ‘2’ question, and I insist on giving a ‘1’ answer, or vice versa, we’re going to get into confusion.
For me the appropriateness of the answer depends on the question asked; and I’ll answer directly. If someone asks me what the moral status of theodicy is, I’ll say ‘problematic’ (a ‘1’ answer). If someone asks me whether it makes sense for human beings to judge God, morally, I’ll say ‘not really’ (a ‘2’ answer); from which it follows that it doesn’t make much sense to defend God from moral judgement (by constructing a theodicy) either.
You could respond to the ‘1’ question with a ‘2’ answer, e.g.:
Q) ‘What is the moral status of theodicy?’
A) ‘That question makes no sense; we’re not in a position to judge God.’
That’s a common anti-theodical response I think.
Any ‘1’ answer to a ‘2’ question would clearly miss the point and might slip into question-begging, e.g.:
Q) ‘Does it make sense to judge God, morally?’
A) ‘Theodicy is morally wrong!’
This certainly ‘presupposes theodicism’, and would prompt a corrective response like Snellman’s (I think). Maybe that’s what he thought was going on.
Alternatively, you could insist that we ‘remain within the framework of theodicy’ (remain at the ‘1’ level?), in which case my ‘1’ answer wouldn’t change even if it brought an accusation of question begging. I’d take the accusation of question begging and not care, because it’s overridden by a moral necessity.
I think you identify this, and you’re right to, when you talk about the priority of the should over the how. It’s rather like saying ‘if you were to commit child abuse, how would you do it?’! In the debate ‘what is the morally best way to do child abuse?’, do I beg the question when I say that there are no ‘best’ ways to do child abuse? ‘Within the framework of child abuse’, yes, yes I do beg the question against that, and I am right to do so. I reject that argument on the basis of its conclusion. I reject that argument on the basis of the question!
Imagine the dialogue:
‘If you were to commit child abuse, how would you do it?’
I wouldn’t commit child abuse; it would be wrong.
‘But if you were to commit child abuse, how would you make it right?’
I don’t think you could make it right.
‘But if you had to, theoretically, how would you?’
Etc. And I’d say I have no interest in continuing this conversation because no good can come of it. It began as a ‘1’ response (child abuse is wrong) and became a ‘2’ response (what you’re saying is beyond the limits of reasonable thought).
And obviously my particular complication would be that I give my ‘1’ answer by reference to a moral modality: it’s not just morally wrong but morally impossible…which clearly is, or at least could be legitimately seen as being, a form of question begging.
But even if the question begging accusation is fair, I don’t care! If I beg the question against theodicy by saying it’s not OK to speak in defence of the worst evils in the world, then so much the worse for theodicy, and so much the better for question begging! I’d rather be a question-beggar than that…
Which is really the underlying thrust of all my writing on this. Again, just grabbed a bit from the Snellman piece…there I said:
‘…the arguments of moral anti-theodicy are still doing some legitimate work […] even if they do not respond to theodicy, insist on theodicism, or undermine the underlying metaphysics of the God of the philosophers.’
In Defence of Moralising Anti-Theodicy: A Reply to Snellman
What ‘work’? To draw our attention to moral necessity, and in that to orient ourselves rightly in a world of suffering.
Clearly this ‘work’ is tangential to the discussion of theodicy and anti-theodicy, for most people, but for me it’s the whole point.
Anyway, in conclusion, what you say here is basically it:
‘Therefore, the claim that some evils cannot be justified is not a presupposition, as Snellman claims, but the conclusion of one argument, and to call it a premise, as Betenson does, might be misleading. If it is used as a premise in another argument, or a longer argument, which concludes that theodicy should be abandoned, then it is an intermediate conclusion of the whole argument. Therefore, moral anti-theodicy has not assumed that a presupposition of theodicy is false, but rather argued for it, and then using the conclusion of said argument to further argue that the claims of theodicy are false.’
Gabriel Echazú, ‘Does moral anti-theodicy beg the question?‘
What I said was misleading, overall; but not to Snellman because I think we were assuming a certain shared ground and the conclusion of any preliminary argument as a starting point (especially since he seems to be mainly/only interested in operating at the meta-critique ‘2’ level). And since I would’ve been using that reply to him to make a wider point to the audience, it’s not so relevant to my purposes because I’d have been trying to show that it didn’t matter.
Going forward, I expect your article will provide a helpful clarification for anyone else thinking about these things: I hope it becomes a waypoint on the route.
All the best,
Toby
Postscript
I received a friendly and informative reply from Gabriel, which I really appreciated, and we’ve exchanged a few emails since.
As I drift into these more experimental ways of writing philosophy, or doing philosophy, or being a philosopher, I’m inclined to work privately but to air some of it publicly to see how it flies and to let it breathe. For these academic discussions, I think the idea of turning away from a ‘conversation’ (which can only be a parodic use of the term) via academic journals and turning towards a conversation between individuals (regardless of the public) is interesting and attractive for various reasons, but equally I think it would be a shame to bury this from wider view.
But what is obvious to me is that now I no longer need the publications, having abandoned an academic career, I see no reason to publish in journals. I see no reason not to just talk to people directly… And I wonder if this is circling back to a kind of ‘pre-book’ form of writing, which makes sense if there is an over-saturation of books and journal articles (which there is). You have to cut through the noise somehow (if you have to speak at all).
Read more: The Problem of Evil as an Ethical Problem
tobybetenson.com 